Chapter 7

The light was different in the morning. It wasn’t the amber, golden haze of the vineyard at dusk, where the air still hummed with the scent of crushed grapes and expensive oak, but a pale, washed-out grey that filtered through the heavy velvet drapes of the guest suite. I stirred, my body heavy and languid, anchored to the mattress by the weight of him. His arm was a iron band across my waist, pulling me flush against his chest, his breath warm and rhythmic against the nape of my neck. I didn’t open my eyes immediately. I stayed in that liminal space between sleep and waking, savoring the solid reality of him, the way his heartbeat thumped a steady counter-rhythm to my own racing pulse. We hadn’t gone back to the city. We hadn’t even gone back to the main house. The event had ended just after midnight, a whirlwind of clinking glasses, low murmurs, and the final corks popping like gunshots in the cavernous cellar. I remembered the dizziness, not from the wine, though the Pinot Noir had been intoxicating, but from the intensity of his gaze. He had pulled me from the crowd, his hand firm on my